Queasy chiming guitar twang winds around the inexorable pulse of hi-hat and other cymbal work, while a plain keyboard chord progression climbs across the background, and then "Breeding" totally kicks in and we are somewhere notably removed from the power-amplified space rock / psychedelia of Radar Men's previous records; that opener is all basic tension building energy pulling taut amid keening masculine yowls and a suddenly skull-cracking dirge being played out between the drummer and bassist. It's right there in the first fiew minutes that you can hear the early-Swans influence that more folks have been ascribing to Bestial Light, and when it all comes crashing down and that knuckle-dragging two-chord riff really takes over the joint and rubs your snout in the swill, it's tough to argue. Hardly a lick of the Hawkwindian / Acid Mothers Temple-esque cosmic wave-riding these guys dished out on the earlier Fuzz Club discs, but this is way more up my alley, naturally. That opening song has around six and a half minutes of some of the finest psychedelic scum-dirge that's skulked through this compound in a while.

That combo of sneering and sardonic post-punk, post-industrial clank, sauropod drum hammering, Iggy-on-'ludes ranting, and earth-shifting blasts of incredible atavistic heaviness keeps coming as you make your way through such sonic monsters as "Piss Christ" (which feels like the ugliest Birthday Party moments boiled down to an easily injectable hypno-trance), the dissonant clamor of "Sacred Cunt Of The Universe" that transmutes a hideous guitar chord and slowburn percussive power into stunning cinematic sprawl (with the group's psych roots really taking flight here, blazing and beautiful saxophone sounds ascending into the heavens while things turn all Floydian for a while), "Eden In Reverse" and its snotty snarl, once again two-note riff wrapped in bludgeoning bass guitar thud, scouring six-string atonality adding up to a perversely catchy hook that finally explodes into wild ferocity. But man, when these guys turn it around in a more atmopsheric and wondrous vista, they really knock it out; carefully layered among all that grueling sludgy dirge are a number of breathtaking sonic scenes that stop me dead in my tracks with each spin. The title track, though, materializes into a pure ritualistic drift of sound, echoing vocals and ominous droning synthesizers hovering in space for a bit before the album's most punishing No Wave-damaged power-dirge builds and builds and explodes into this almost militarized industrial-metal-esque battery that stretches on andd out, opening up at spots to let each of the musicians breathe within that monstrous staccato chug. After that it gets more relentless, the merauding bass slither ans sax squall of "Self" that shapes it into an unsettling personal (anti-)affirmation mantra, some more of that weird dusty twang emerging in "Pleasure" that warps the time signature into something even twitchier as that gives over to closer "Levelling Dust".

Kinda passes for an album from the cusp of the 80s/90s shift, which isn't a complaint on my end. I definitely dig the rawer and more spare production you give bands like this

Drunkdriver, Brainbombs, Kilslug, Clockcleaner, early Melvins, maybe even fellow Dutchmen Gore to a smaller extent - a heavy vibe of ugly, difficult and damaged

that previous aggro "space rock" heard ion their excellent Subversive trilogy of albums was great stuff, the sort of lysergic, summoning sensory overload that's like the sort of thing the guys at Neurot often champion, but this divergence, either momentary or a sign of even mangier things to come, locked up with me at an almost genetic level